Spanish orthography is the writing system for the Spanish language. It is fairly phonemic, especially in comparison to more opaque orthographies like English and Irish, having a relatively consistent mapping of graphemes to phonemes.
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The Spanish language is written using the Spanish alphabet, which is the Latin alphabet with one additional letter, eñe (⟨ñ⟩), for a total of 27 letters.[1] Although the letters ⟨k⟩ and ⟨w⟩ are part of the alphabet, they appear only in loanwords such as karate, kilo and walkman. Each letter has a single official name according to the Real Academia Española's new 2010 Common Orthography,[1] but in some regions alternative traditional names coexist as explained below.
| Letter | A | B | C1 | D | E | F | G | H | I |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | a | be | ce | de | e | efe | ge | hache | i |
| IPA | /a/ | /b/ | /k/, /θ/2 | /d/ | /e/ | /f/ | /ɡ/, /x/ | silent | /i/ |
| Letter | J | K | L | M | N | Ñ | O | P | Q |
| Name | jota | ka | ele | eme | ene | eñe | o | pe | cu |
| IPA | /x/ | /k/ | /l/3 | /m/ | /n/ | /ɲ/ | /o/ | /p/ | /k/ |
| Letter | R4 | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
| Name | erre | ese | te | u | uve | doble uve | equis | i griega | ceta |
| IPA | /ɾ/, /r/ | /s/ | /t/ | /u/ | /b/ | /ɡw/ | /ks/, /x/, /s/ | /ʝ/, /i/ | /θ/a |
^1 The sequence ⟨ch⟩ represents the affricate [tʃ]. The digraph was formerly treated as a single letter, called che.
^2 The phonemes /θ/ and /s/ have merged in many dialects; see ceceo.
^3 When ⟨l⟩ is written double (e.g. calle), it represents either palatal /ʎ/ (a sound that has merged with that of ⟨y⟩ in a number of dialects). The digraph was formerly treated as a single letter, called elle.
^4 The digraph ⟨rr⟩, which only appears between vowels, represents the trill [r].
For details on Spanish pronunciation, see Spanish phonology and Wikipedia:IPA for Spanish.
When acute accent and diaeresis marks are used on vowels (⟨á⟩, ⟨é⟩, ⟨í⟩, ⟨ó⟩, ⟨ú⟩ and ⟨ü⟩) they are considered variants of the plain vowel letters, but ⟨ñ⟩ is considered a separate letter from ⟨n⟩. This makes a difference when sorting alphabetically; ⟨ñ⟩ appears in dictionaries after ⟨n⟩. For example, in a Spanish dictionary piñata comes after pinza.
There are three digraphs: ⟨ch⟩ (che / ce hache), ⟨ll⟩ (elle / doble ele) and ⟨rr⟩ (doble erre).[2] While che and elle were formerly considered separate letters,[1] the tenth congress of the Association of Spanish Language Academies agreed to alphabetize ⟨ch⟩ and ⟨ll⟩ as ordinary pairs of letters in the dictionary by request of UNESCO and other international organizations. Thus ⟨ch⟩ now comes between ⟨cg⟩ and ⟨ci⟩, instead of being alphabetized between ⟨c⟩ and ⟨d⟩ as was formerly done.[3] Despite their former status as separate letters of the alphabet, ⟨ch⟩, ⟨ll⟩, and ⟨rr⟩ have always been correctly capitalized as two Latin letters. The word chillón in a text written in all caps is CHILLÓN, not *ChILlÓN, and if it is the first word of a sentence, it is written Chillón, not *CHillón. Sometimes one finds lifts (elevators) with buttons marked *LLamar, but this double capitalization has always been incorrect according to RAE rules.
In Spanish text, the letters are ranked from most to least common ⟨E A O S R N I D L C T U M P B G V Y Q H F Z J Ñ X W K⟩ [4] the vowels take around the 45% of the text.
| sound | before ⟨e/i⟩ | elsewhere |
|---|---|---|
| /θ/ | ⟨c⟩ | ⟨z⟩ |
| /k/ | ⟨qu⟩ | ⟨c⟩ |
| /kw/ | ⟨cu⟩ | |
| /x/ | ⟨g⟩ or ⟨j⟩ | ⟨j⟩ |
| /g/ | ⟨gu⟩ | ⟨g⟩ |
| /gw/ | ⟨gü⟩ | ⟨gu⟩ |
Spanish orthography is such that the pronunciation of most words is unambiguous given their written form; the main exception is the letter ⟨x⟩, which variously represents either /x/, /ks/, /s/ or /ʃ/, depending on the word. These rules are similar to, but not the same as, those of other Romance languages of the Iberian Peninsula, such as Portuguese, Catalan and Galician.
The converse does not always hold, i.e. for a given pronunciation there may be multiple possible spellings. The main issues are:
The vowels can be marked with an acute accent (⟨á, é, í, ó, ú⟩) for two purposes: to mark stress if it does not follow the normal pattern, or to differentiate words that are otherwise spelled identically (this is the true diacritic usage).
A silent ⟨u⟩ is used between ⟨g⟩ and ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩ to indicate a hard ⟨g⟩ pronunciation, so that ⟨gue⟩ represents /ɡe/ and ⟨gui⟩ represents /ɡi/. The letter ⟨ü⟩ (⟨u⟩ with diaeresis,) is used in this context to indicate that the ⟨u⟩ is not silent. The diaeresis may occur also in Spanish poetry, occasionally, over either vowel of a diphthong, to indicate an irregular disyllabic pronunciation required by the meter (viüda, to be pronounced as three syllables). This is analogous to the use of ⟨ï⟩ in naïve in English.
Also a silent ⟨u⟩ always follows a ⟨q⟩ when followed by ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩, as in queso, química, but there is no case for the combination *⟨qü⟩. There are no native words in Spanish with the combination ⟨qua⟩ nor ⟨quo⟩. When they appear, usually from Latin idioms such as statu quo, the ⟨u⟩ is always pronounced, so ⟨ü⟩ is never needed after ⟨q⟩. Prior to the introduction of the 2010 Common Orthography words such as cuórum ('quorum'), cuásar ('quasar') or Catar ('Qatar') were spelled with ⟨q⟩, however this is no longer so.
Written Spanish unequivocally marks stress through a series of orthographic rules. The default stress is on the penultimate (next-to-last) syllable on words that end in a vowel, ⟨n⟩ or ⟨s⟩ and on the final syllable when the word ends in any consonant other than ⟨n⟩ or ⟨s⟩. Words that do not follow the default stress have an acute accent over the stressed vowel.
Note that, unlike Portuguese or Catalan, Spanish rules count most syllables in rising diphthongs, not vowels, to assign written accents. A syllable is of the form XaXX, where X represents a consonant, permissible consonant cluster, or no sound at all, and a represents a vowel, diphthong, or triphthong. A diphthong is any sequence of an unstressed high vowel (⟨i⟩ or ⟨u⟩) with another vowel (as in gracias or náutico). And a triphthong is any combination of three vowels beginning and ending with unstressed high vowels (as in cambiáis or buey). Hence Spanish writes familia (no accent), while Portuguese and Catalan both put an accent mark on família (all three languages stress the first ⟨i⟩). The letter ⟨h⟩ is not considered an interruption between vowels (with some exception, as in alcohol, which in careful speech has three syllables).
An accent over the high vowel (⟨i⟩ or ⟨u⟩) of a vowel sequence prevents it from being a diphthong (i.e., it signals a hiatus): for example, tía and país have two syllables each.
A word with final stress is called oxytone (or aguda in traditional Spanish grammar texts); a word with penultimate stress is called paroxytone (llana or grave); a word with antepenultimate stress (stress on the third last syllable) is called proparoxytone (esdrújula). A word with preantepenultimate stress (on the fourth last syllable) or earlier does not have a common linguistic term in English, but in Spanish receives the name sobresdrújula. (Spanish words can be stressed only on one of the last three syllables, except in the case of a verb form with enclitic pronouns, such as poniéndoselo.) All proparoxytones and sobresdrújulas have a written accent mark.
Adjectives spelled with a written accent (such as fácil, geográfico, cortés) keep the written accent when they are made into adverbs with the -mente ending (thus fácilmente, geográficamente, cortésmente). In the pronunciation of these adverbs — as with all adverbs in -mente — primary stress is on the ending, on the penultimate syllable. The original stress of the adjective — whether marked, as in fácilmente, or not marked, as in libremente — may be manifested as a secondary stress in the adverb.
In a number of cases, homonyms are distinguished with written accents on the stressed (or only) syllable: for example, te (informal object case of 'you') vs. té ('tea'); se (third person reflexive) vs. sé ('I know' or imperative 'be'); tu (informal 'your') vs. tú (informal subject case of 'you'). When relative and interrogative pronouns have the same letters (as is often the case), the interrogative pronoun is accented and the relative pronoun is not:
The use of ó is poetic for the vocative: ¡Ó señor! The use of ⟨ó⟩ for the word o (meaning 'or') is a hypercorrection. Up until 2010, ⟨ó⟩ was used when applied to numbers: 7 ó 9 ('7 or 9'), to avoid possible confusion with the digit 0. The tenth congress of the Association of Spanish Language Academies deemed the use an accent unnecessary, as typewriting eliminates possible confusion due to the different shapes of ⟨0⟩ (zero) and ⟨o⟩ (the letter).[1]
These diacritics are often called acentos diacríticos or tildes diacríticas in traditional Spanish grammar.
Capitalization in Spanish is sparse compared to English. In general, only personal and place names, some abbreviations (e.g. Sr. López, but señor López), the first word (only) in the title of a book, movie, song, etc., and the first word in a sentence are capitalized, as are names of companies, government bodies, etc. Names of nationalities or languages are not capitalized, nor (in standard style) are days of the week and months of the year.[7]
In Old Spanish, ⟨x⟩ was used to represent the voiceless palatal sound /ʃ/ (as in dixo 'he/she said'), while ⟨j⟩ represented the voiced palatal /ʒ/ (as in fijo 'son'). With the changes of sibilants in the 16th century, the two sounds merged as /ʃ/ (later to become velar /x/), and the letter ⟨j⟩ was chosen for the single resulting phoneme. When Cervantes wrote Don Quixote he spelled the name in the old way (and English preserves the ⟨x⟩), but modern editions in Spanish spell it with ⟨j⟩. For the use of ⟨x⟩ in Mexico — and in the name México itself — see below.
The letter ⟨ç⟩ (c-cedilla) — which was first used in Old Spanish — is now obsolete in Spanish, having merged with ⟨z⟩ in a process similar to that of ⟨x⟩ and ⟨j⟩. Old Spanish coraçon, cabeça, fuerça became modern corazón, cabeza, fuerza.
Words formerly spelled with ⟨ze⟩ or ⟨zi⟩ (such as catorze, dezir, and vezino) are now written with ⟨ce⟩ and ⟨ci⟩ (catorce, decir, vecino, respectively). The sequences ⟨ze⟩ and ⟨zi⟩ do not occur in modern Spanish; even the borrowed words for 'zebra' and 'zinc' are cebra and cinc.
The old spellings with ⟨x⟩, ⟨ç⟩, ⟨ze⟩, and ⟨zi⟩ remained in use through the fifteenth century. They were mostly replaced by ⟨j⟩, ⟨z⟩, ⟨ce⟩, and ⟨ci⟩, respectively around the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; since the eighteenth century, only the newer forms have been used.[8] The first edition of Don Quixote (1605), however, used the conservative spellings.
Words spelled in modern Spanish with ⟨cua⟩ (e.g. cuando, cuatro, etc.) were written with ⟨qua⟩ up until around 1815.[9]
In the second half of the 18th century, most double consonants were simplified (e.g. grammatica → gramática, addicion → adición)—but the ⟨m⟩ of a prefix before the ⟨m⟩ of a root was differentiated to ⟨n⟩ (e.g. "commover → conmover"). And the Graeco-Latin digraphs ⟨ch⟩, ⟨ph⟩, ⟨(r)rh⟩ and ⟨th⟩ were reduced to to ⟨c⟩, ⟨f⟩, ⟨(r)r⟩ and ⟨t⟩, respectively (e.g. christiano → cristiano, triumpho → triunfo, myrrha → mirra, theatro → teatro).
The use of accent marks in publishing varies with different historical periods, due mainly to reforms promulgated by the Spanish Royal Academy. For example, many of the words that are today standardly written with an accent mark appeared more often without it up until around 1880. These include words with final stress ending in -n (e.g. capitán, también, jardín, acción, común — but not future-tense verb forms like serán, tendrán);[10][11] verbs in the imperfect tense (e.g. tenía, vivían);[12] the possessives mío and mía;[13] and the word día.[14] Meanwhile, one-letter words other than the conjunction y — namely the preposition a and the conjunctions e (the form of y before an [i] sound), o, and u (form of o before [o]) — are generally written with accent marks from the mid 1700s to about 1910.[15][16] The accent-marked infinitive oír begins to outnumber the unaccented form around 1920.[17] Monosyllabic preterit verb forms such as dio and fue were usually written with accent marks before the 1950s.[18]
The names of numbers in the upper teens and the twenties were originally written as three words (e.g. diez y seis, veinte y nueve), but nowadays they have come to be spelled predominantly as a single word (e.g. dieciséis, veintinueve). For the numbers from 21 to 29, the "fused" forms emerged over the second half of the 19th century.[19] For those from 16 to 19, the one-word forms took the lead in the 1940s.[20] Fusing of number-names above 30 (e.g. treinticinco, cuarentiocho) is rare.
In spite of the regular orthography of Spanish (especially when compared to English), there have been several initiatives to reform its spelling: Andrés Bello succeeded in making his proposal official in several South American countries, but they later returned to the standard set by the Real Academia Española.[21] Another initiative, the Ortografia Fonetika Rasional Ispanoamerikana, remained a curiosity. Juan Ramón Jiménez proposed changing ⟨ge⟩ and ⟨gi⟩ to ⟨je⟩ and ⟨ji⟩, but this is only applied in editions of his works or those of his wife, Zenobia Camprubí. Gabriel García Márquez raised the issue of reform during a congress at Zacatecas, most notoriously advocating for the suppression of ⟨h⟩, which is mute in Spanish, but, despite his prestige, no serious changes were adopted. The Academies, however, from time to time have made minor changes, such as allowing este instead of éste ('this one'), when there is no possible confusion.
Mexican Spanish convention is to spell certain indigenous words with ⟨x⟩ rather than the ⟨j⟩ that would be the standard spelling in Spanish. This is generally due to the origin of the word (or the present pronunciation) containing the voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/ sound or another sibilant that is not used in modern standard Spanish. The most noticeable word with this feature is México (see Toponymy of Mexico). The Real Academia Española recommends this spelling.[22] (The North American Spanish colloquial term chicano is shortened from mechicano, which uses /tʃ/ in place of the /ʃ/ of contra-Madridian/rural Mexican Spanish /meʃiˈkano/).